Dr. Kimberly Sinclair Holmes serves as Assistant Extension Director in the Alabama Cooperative Extension
System at Alabama A&M University (AAMU). In this role, she is responsible for directing more than 30 staff
and educational outreach programming in eight major program areas. Programming is delivered across
nine Urban Centers that reach over 35 counties in the state of Alabama and includes 4-H Youth
Development with STEM, Urban Agriculture, Forestry, Wildlife and Natural Resources, Animal Science,
Community Resource Development, including Entrepreneurship, Family and Child Development,
Consumer Science and Personal Financial Management, and Human Nutrition, Diet and Health. These
programs directly and indirectly reach more than 400,000 persons each year.
Prior to her statewide role at AAMU, Dr. Sinclair Holmes held numerous academic and administrative roles
at five institutions of higher education over the past 15 years. She has served in such previous roles as
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness,
Associate Provost, Associate Professor of Public Administration, Acting Director of Sponsored Programs,
and Associate Dean, College of Agriculture, Food Science and Sustainable Systems, among others. She
started her career as a Product Systems Engineer at Delphi Delco Electronics Systems; at that time a
subsidiary of General Motors, Inc.
Dr. Sinclair Holmes has also served on a number of Boards and Committees over the course of her career;
including the national 4-H Program Leaders Working Group (PLWG), Southern Rural Development Center
Board of Directors, Commonwealth of Kentucky Governor’s Executive Task Force on Biomass and Biofuels, Association of Public and Land Grant Universities- Budget and Legislative Subcommittee of the
Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP), and USDA/1890 Task Force Executive Team.
Dr. Holmes has also benefitted from training in numerous executive leadership development programs. In
November 2023, she completed the national HBCU Executive Leadership Institute hosted by Clark Atlanta
University, where she also earned a micro-credential in Navigating Board Governance. Other executive
programs included the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)’s Millennium
Leadership Institute (MLI), Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s Leading in a Changing
World Executive Education Program and the University System of Georgia’s Executive Leadership Institute
(ELI). Dr. Holmes holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Tuskegee University, a master
of science degree with an engineering concentration from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a doctor
of philosophy degree in public affairs (public policy-making and administration) from the University of Texas
at Dallas.